TERRAFORMING TERRA
We discuss and comment on the role agriculture will play in the containment of the CO2 problem and address protocols for terraforming the planet Earth.
A model farm template is imagined as the central methodology. A broad range of timely science news and other topics of interest are commented on.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

UK Commences Complete Review of Bayer's Pesticide

The bee story continues with the UK now doing a
complete review of the neonicotinoid situation.It is reminiscent of the foot-dragging that took place back in the early
sixties when thalidomide fiasco broke out.The evidence kept gathering while apologists kept singing and the public
swiftly became angrier.

The public is not involved yet
but it is not going to stay that way.The mere fact that it is effectively banned in Germany is telling as they were
surely first adopters.

The class action on this one may
well cost Bayer massively since we are looking at what has been a massive
destruction of the bee industry itself and that can be organized easily by
lawyers.

A little harder to qualify
general losses as this has also affected wild pollinators also but their
ability to perform may be much more robust.

Remember neonicotinoids? They're the widely used class of pesticides
that an increasing body of evidence -- including from USDA
researchers -- implicates in the collapse of honeybee populations.
Neonicotinoids are marketed by the agrichemical giant Bayer, which reels in
about $800 million in sales from them each year.

Good news: A government body is reconsidering the decision to approve
those chemicals, based partly on concerns raised by Pettis. Less-good news:
That government body is not our own; it's in the United Kingdom. Our own EPA has
maintained its approval for the pesticides -- and farmers throughout the nation
will soon plant tens of millions of acres of neonicotinoid-treated corn seeds,
which will soon sprout into trillions of corn plants with neonicotinoid-infused
pollen.

Growing concern about the new generation of pesticides used on 2.5
million acres of U.K. farmland has led one of the Government's most senior
scientific advisers to order a review of the evidence used to justify their
safety.

That scientist, Robert Watson, is the chief scientific adviser at the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the U.K. version of
the EPA.

Watson's concern was triggered by two recent studies, The
Independent reports. The first is Pettis' as yet unpublished study, whose
existence was revealed by The
Independent in January. The second, according to the newspaper, is new
research from the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, which
also found bees highly vulnerable to neonicotinoids in small doses.

It appears that the pesticides compromise bees' immune systems, making
them susceptible to a viral pathogen called nosema.

Now, it's important to note that both Pettis' work and that of the
French National Institute for Agricultural Research took place in the
laboratory, not the field. That is, they established that neonicotinoids
theoretically pose a grave threat to honeybees. That's not the same as showing
that they harm them in real-world, corn-field conditions.

But given the decline of honeybee health, which roughly tracks with the
explosion of neonicotinoid use in the late '90s, these studies show clear cause
for grave concern. The coauthor of the Pettis study, PennStateUniversity entomologist Dennis Van
Engelsdorp, has stated [PDF]
that their research found severe harm from neonicotinoids at extremely low
levels, "below the limit of detection." He added: "The only
reason we knew the [dead] bees had exposure [to neonicotinoid pesticides] is
because we exposed them."

What about field tests? The study presented by Bayer to show that the
pesticides don't cause harm in real-world conditions has been thoroughly
discredited. The EPA had accepted the study, after holding it without comment
for two years; but then, last year, its own scientists downgraded it on the
grounds that it was flawed, an internal
EPA memo leaked in December showed.

Apparently, to professional entomologists not on the Bayer payroll, the
study was plainly shoddy. James Frazier, professor of entomology at Penn State,
minced no words when I asked him about it in December. "When I looked at
the study," he told me in a phone interview, "I immediately thought
it was invalid."

So we've got the theoretical possibility that neonicotinoids cause
serious harm to bees even at extremely low levels; we've got one of the few
actual field studies exonerating the pesticide declared invalid; and we've got
a catastrophic decline of a species critical to agriculture that coincides with
the rise of said pesticide. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to conclude
that there's sufficient evidence to halt its use and subject it to rigorous,
independent field study.

They're at least considering that course of action in the United Kingdom.
And they're taking USDA scientist Pettis quite seriously. True, his research
remains unpublished two years after it was completed. He has told me in emails
that his study is in the review process for publication, but has no release
date yet. He emphasized that the "delays are on my end; not a conspiracy
to keep my data from seeing the light of day."

Delayed or not, Pettis' research has inspired the U.K.'s version of EPA to publicly
review its decision to green-light neonicotinoids. Furthermore, Pettis
"sits on a panel of leading experts who will review a £10m [$16 million]
research initiative into the decline of bees funded by Defra, two of Britain's
research councils, the Wellcome Trust and the Scottish Government," the Independent reports.
He'll also address the House of Commons next month to "present his
findings on neonicotinoids to MPs concerned about the possible link between the
pesticides and the demise of bees and pollinating insects."

Hmm. Surely there are members of our analogue to the House of Commons,
the House of Representatives, who are concerned about the possible link between
the pesticides and the demise of bees and pollinating insects? Perhaps those
formidable defenders of the environment, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed
Markey (D-Mass.)? Or Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y), who has been so heroic
in the fight to prevent the meat industry from abusing antibiotics?

Tragically, it's probably too late to stop the planting of neonicotinoid-laced
crops during this spring's growing season. But the long-term health of our
pollinators -- and the health of the vast swaths of agriculture that rely on
them -- demands serious attention to the mounting concerns about this highly
profitable and ubiquitous class of pesticides.

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18 years old, having cleaned out my HS library, I concluded the only ambition worth having was becoming a great genius. An inner voice cheered. Yet it is my path I have shared much to the Human Gesalt. Mar 2017 - 4.56 Mil Pg Views, March 2013 - Posted my paper introducing CLOUD COSMOLOGY & NEUTRAL NEUTRINO described as the SPACE TIME PENDULUM. Sep 2010 -My essay titled A NEW METRIC WITH APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICS AND SOLVING CERTAIN HIGHER ORDERED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS has been published in Physics Essays(AIP) June 2010 quarterly. 40 years ago I took an honors degree in applied mathematics from the University of Waterloo. My interest was Relativity and my last year there saw me complete a 900 level course under Hanno Rund on his work in Relativity. I continued researching new ideas and knowledge since that time and I have prepared a book for publication titled Paradigms Shift. I maintain my blog as a day book and research tool to retain data, record impressions, interpretations and to introduce new insights to readers.